Until recently it was not feasible to consider electron beam (e-beam) lithography as an efficient method of mass producing wafers. Older e-beam writers, while intensely precise, had extremely long process times making them notoriously slow. In fact such e-beam writers, due to the low rate of pattern transfer, were usually only used to form masks or small portions of wafers requiring extraordinary precision.
With the recent advent of newer type e-beam lithography devices it has become increasing more likely that such devices may be used to pattern wafers on a more substantial scale. Such devices include certain Dynamic Pattern Generators (DPG's) which embody new possibilities for Direct Write (DW) using e-beam lithography. In addition to the foregoing, the invention of reflective electron beam lithography (REBL) also presents the potential for new processing technologies. One such new device is described in the U.S. Pat. No. 6,870,172 entitled “Maskless Reflection Electron Beam Projection Lithography” dated Mar. 22, 2005 which is hereby incorporated by reference for all purposes, including, a specific illustration of a REBL device.
Although such devices show tremendous potential, they also present enormous application challenges to those of ordinary skill in the photolithographic arts. One among many such challenges is a data processing challenge. Most current implementations of methods of implementing a patterned electron beam require that each separate element of a beam patterning device to be individually actuated to enable a selected portion of the e-beam to be active so that a pattern can be produced. Additionally, it is appreciated that such patterns change as an e-beam is scanned across a die surface. Thus, tremendous amounts of information must currently be processed on an element-by-element basis as the e-beam scans across a surface to transfer a pattern. Those of ordinary skill appreciate that data rates of on the order of tens of terabit (Tb) per second (10+12 bps) are required to enable many of these technologies in order to produce a reasonable throughput. Current technologies are not able to handle such data rates in current implementations of charged particles or optical patterning devices.
What is needed is a method and apparatus for addressing these challenges and providing a reliable and fast method for processing and applying pattern data. Thus, the embodiments of the disclosed invention are disclosed with the intention of solving at least some of the existing problems in the art. The embodiments of invention present substantial advances over the existing methodologies and overcome many limitations of the existing art. These and other inventive aspects of the invention will be discussed hereinbelow.